If you are like me, as you surf, you bookmark.   And bookmark, and bookmark.  You wind up with a large, semi-disorganized list of bookmarks, which are of no use as soon as you are at a computer other than your own.  My solution is the list below, which I (and you!) can get at from anywhere on the Internet.  I will update it at random times with my own new discoveries.  You are welcome to send in yours as well.  If I like 'em, I'll add 'em in and give you credit.

The links I like best are those that fall into one or more of the following categories:

1. Informational, preferably with pictures.  Examples include "Braiding Garlic", "How to keep Japanese Hornfaced Bees" or "Growth Habit of the Kentucky Coffee Tree."
2. Other gardeners' trading lists, especially those with home-taken photos of rare varieties growing in their garden.
3. Non-commercial sites such as rare variety conservation organizations and amateur/non-profit/local organizations such as The North American Fruit Explorers
4. (Last and least) Commercial organizations that  sell rare varieties or useful, hard to find items.  These will almost always be small outfits, preferably family run, and will be noted below as commercial.

Non-Commercial Heirloom Plant and Seed Sources on the Web

• @Man's seed trading page   My trading list.
• Rare Fruit Council An organization that distributes seeds to rare fruits such as Cherimoyas, soursop, custard apple, papaya, kaffir lime, rare lemons, etc.

• Bountiful Gardens A great information, organic seeds and rare varieties.

• Asrd's seed and bulb trading page    Lots of flowers and bulbs and a few veggies.
• The European Garden Exchange provides a place where users can offer seeds and plants for trade and make requests for what they are seeking. This forum is meant solely for trading within the European Community. Items for sale are not permitted.
• Reinhards Tomatoes is in German but can be automatically translated into English by babelfish.  I have traded with Reinhard--he is a great guy with lots of very cool tomatoes (English) and excellent photos of many varieties.  He also has peppers, tomatillos, and other things.  Don't be afraid to send him mail, his English is great.
• The La Palma Seed Exchange run by Peter Merle has unusual peppers, tomatoes and a selection of other flowers and vegetables.
• Tom Clotheir's Seed Trading Page  Lot of flower and herb varieties that are going fast.  Pictures available.
• Neva's Apples and Pears Neva maintains around 200 varieties of apples and 100 varieties of pears.
• Backyard Fruit Growers Be sure to check out the Woodbank (a list of available scionwood) and the non-fruit focus groups (garlic and habeneros).  Also has lots and lots and lots of excellent links.
• Apple, pear and quince budsticks from NRSP-5 Virus free fruit tree clones for $5/budwood.  Supported by the US Dept of Agriculture and Washington State University.  Will ship to foreign (non-U.S.A.) destinations for USD $50 extra.
• The North American Fruit Explorers  The granddaddy of all fruit swap/support organizations.  Be sure to check out their list of regional organizations.
• Midwest Fruit Explorers  A non-profit organization of amateur backyard fruit growing enthusiasts.
• Cucurbyte Seed Swap Page Trade/request free Atlantic Giant pumpkin seeds.
• Native Seeds/SEARCH is a nonprofit organization that works to conserve the traditional crops, seeds, and farming methods that have sustained native peoples throughout the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico for hundreds of years.  Native Americans can get free or low-cost seeds; others can buy at normal prices.  Their catalogs are not online yet, but you can request a printed one from their website.  I love this organization. Also see their old(?) website.
• If you join the Arbor Day Foundation for $10 you get ten free trees.
• Seednet is an organization that gives away free seed to qualifying projects.  They need donations of USDA-certified disease- and insect-free seed.
• The National Genetic Resources Program is a US Department of Agriculture program that stores plant, animal, microbial germplasm and invertebrate genetic resources. You can browse their collection and request small quantities for research purposes (breeding your own line of squash, for example). They have a tremendous amount of material including fruit tree stock.
• Seeds of Texas Seed Exchange is a non-profit organization dedicated to finding and trading seeds adapted to the climates of Texas.
• The Seed Savers' Network of Australia is an organization dedicated to the preservation os open pollinated varieties. Their web site appears to be really out of date.

Seed Saving Organizations

• The Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit international non-governmental organization that maintains what is probably the largest publically available collection of heirloom seeds, bulbs, roots, tubers, scionwood, and grains in the world.  Membership is $25 a year and provides access to an incredible wealth of the remaining fraction of heirlooms.
• Abundant Life Seed Foundation is dedicated to sustainable agriculture, genetic diversity and saving open-pollinated, rare and endangered seed. They are looking for organic growers and could use your support.
• Irish Genetic Resources Conservation Trust is a Non Governmental Organisation which aims to promote the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources in Ireland.
• The VidaVerde Seed Club is a club for collecting and passing on rare and unusual edible plants from all over the world. It is located in Spain.

Grafting!

• Learn Nut Tree Grafting (down the page about 20%) Intro to grafting nut trees
• Grafting For Chestnuts for Blight Resistance contains instructions and diagrams for bark grafting, whip grafting, cleft grafting, triangle grafting, and flute grafting.
• How to Graft (University of Missouri-Columbia page)  Absolutely fabulous, with great photos!
• Basic Grafting (University of Vermont) An intro to apple grafting with hand-drawn illustrations of bridge grafting, cleft grafting, and veneer or bark grafting.
• Simple Whip Grafting Instructions Simpler than the Whip-and-Tongue technique that gives greater stability to the graft.
• T-Budding Instructions A grafting technique for summertime rather than late winter/early spring.
• Chip Budding Instructions Useful when there is a size mismatch between the scionwood and rootstock.
• Texas Inlay Bark Graft "Inlay grafting is one of the best and most popular systems of propagating pecans in Texas. It has been successfully used when other systems have failed because of heat, drought and wind. It has also been successfully used on walnuts, apples, pears, grapes, rabbiteye blueberries and persimmons."
• Characteristics of Apple Rootstocks and Interstem Combinations (Iowa State University Extension) Dwarfing, disease suseptibility, etc. of common apple rootstocks.
• Apple Rootstocks By Mail From Cummins Nursery commercial
• Apple Rootstocks By Mail From Sonoma Antique Apple Nursery commercial

Chickens (bok bok bok bok) and Other Poultry

• Poultry Breeds  (from Oklahoma State University) Great pictures of many kinds of chickens, duck, geese, turkeys, etc.
• Chickman's Poultry Page contains photos of rare poultry varieties and has lots of links.
• Feathersite has lots of great pictures and TONS of useful information.  I highly recommend it.
• The World Wide Poultry Directory is like a world-wide phonebook for poultry breeders.  Even ostriches!  Getting listed is free, getting a copy for yourself is $10 within the USA, more elsewhere.
• The objective of the Society for the Preservation of Poultry Antiquities  is 1) To perpetuate and improve rare breeds of poultry, bantams, ducks, geese, and turkeys.  2) Sponsor awards and shows to encourage more exhibiting and better breeding and 3) To help each other locate rare stock.  Take a look at how many chicken varieties are rare out of the total number that exist today.
• The Poultry Information Exchange has conversation, chat, files, and more.
• The Poultry Connection has classifieds, an auction, pictures and more.  It is a little heavy on the ads and buttonlinks, however.
• Exotic Chickens are available by mail from the Rochester Hatchery in Canada .  Yes!  You can get baby peepers by mail!  Isn't modern technology amazing?  They also have cool pictures. Commercial
• Araucanas (chickens which lay blue/green eggs) are available from Ideal's Chicks.  They also have other rare breeds and neat chicken pictures. Commercial
• Home Processing of Poultry (from Oregon State Univeristy) this is a PDF file and requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Bees!

• Kohala Net has information on honey, lots and lots of great bee pictures, information on hiving swarms, honeybee disease information, and lots more.
• The Backyard Beekeepers Association is a really sweet little organization that has photos, classifieds, honeybee facts, and more.
• The Internet Apiculture and Beekeeping Archive contains a vast amount of bee-related information: the articles from the Usenet newsgroup sci.agriculture.beekeeping, the logs from the listserv bee-l, FAQ files, and pointers to other beekeeping and apicultural resources, on and off the Internet.  They also have a few cute bee pictures on their homepage.
•  Solitary Bees: An Alternative to Honey Bees contains numerous links to non-honeybee bee sites and information.
• Management of Hornfaced Bees for Orchard Pollination tells you everything you need to know to keep Osmia cornifrons--the Japanese Hornfaced Bee.  O. cornifrons is one very cool bee.  Japanese Hornfaced Bees are gentle and easily kept in small blocks of wood with holes drilled in them.

Other How-To Stuff

1. The weather will be different than last season, but not perfect
2. You will be older
3. Somehow the total size of the garden and the amount of work required to maintain it will increase.  The laws of physics do not apply here.
4. You will learn something new!

• How To Germinate Anything

• Secrets to growing giant pumpkins Covers soil preparation, selecting a seed, fertilizing, shading, and more.
• Braiding Garlic (By Donna Metcalfe).  Highly useful in mid-to-late summer, when hundreds of garlic bulbs are suddenly ready at once.
• Grow Apple Trees Like Rosebushes shows you how to grow apple trees the size of a rosebush which still bear full-size fruit.  Any variety you want!  One of my favorite links.
• Growing Giant Watermelons (by Bob Dwyer)  The Carolina Cross is generally the variety to grow. The FAQ contains contact information for a source of good seeds.
• A Small Backyard Geenhouse For the Home Gardener How to build a greenhouse for $100 U.S.
Please use cedar or recycled lumber such as Trex, Timbron or Polywood instead of CCA wood for the base boards. They are much more environmentally friendly.
• Apple Activities contains games, crafts such as stamping an apple-picking bag, and recipies.

General Information

• An article about heirloom apple orcharding
• Cucurbita photos has some really nice photos of a Rouge Vif D'Etampes, Queensland Blue, Small Sugar, Jack-Be-Little, and Baby Boo pumpkins, along with some gourds and crookneck squash. I am a sucker for great vegetable photos.
• Gene List for Cucurbita spp. lists numerous genes that have been identified for various squash species. This is an interesting list for the technically astute pumpkin grower, among others.
• FoodNews allows you to pick a few of your favorite foods, or a meal, and tells you what pesticides you would have consumed had you actually eaten it. Maybe eating organic food is a pretty good idea after all.
• Compost Teas have been show to control a variety of plant disease when applied as a foliar spray.
• Insect problems? Try putting up a bat house from Bat Conservation International. Bats consume tremendous numbers of insects every night and they don't get stuck in people's hair. Bats are cool.
• Heirloom Gardens tells the story of the Mortgage Lifter tomato, and has links to heirloom seed sources.
• Pumpkins and Winter Squash will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about pumpkins and winter squash.
• Nic Welty's Giant Pumpkin Page has a great photo of some large pumpkins and some good cultural information for growers.
• Asclepias tuberosa (Butterfly Weed, Milkweed) picture and information.
• The Gourd Forum contains gourd chat contributed by any interested party.
• The National Gardening Association helps gardeners and helps people through gardening.  They have grants available for prison gardens, community gardens and similar programs.
• The Endangered Species Homepage at the US Fish and Wildlife service is full of good information.  When endangered plant varieties disappear, so do the animals that use them for food.  :-(
• Monsanto's Terminator Technology This technology needs to be banned world-wide and the people that invented it jailed for life for crimes against humanity.  No joke.
• The Terminator Seed and the Ethical Challenges of Biotechnology More on Terminator Technology
• Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) is spearheading the effort against Terminator Technology.
• Genetic Activists Create Superweed - Includes directions to get a roundup-proof superweed kit for free in the USA.  Natural Reality SuperWeed Kit 1.0 is available from Hayvend,  ICA Bar, London, UK for the price of £1.00.  See also Gene crops 'superweed nightmare' confirmed and Fears erupt over genetic food
• Hugh D. Wilson's Web Projects page is full of interesting material. Dr. Wilson at Texas A&M has done a lot of interesting plant science.  I particularly enjoyed his paper on free-living cucurbita pepo but I am a nut for that sort of thing.
• A Collection of Wild and Cultivated Cucurbitaceae from Zambia The results of an IBPGR collection expedition to Zambia.  Such collection expeditions are important because war, drought, and famine are causing the extinction of many food crops in Africa.  (The influx of western hybrid varieties is doing the same thing to varieties in the ex-soviet republics).

Heirloom Plant and Seed Sources (commercial)

• The Potato Patch carries several heirloom potatoes. Warning! One of their varieties is genetically modified.

• Heirloom Plants and Seeds Address List is a list of garden catalogs maintained by Cyndi Johnson.
• The Organic Farming and Gardening Supply List is maintained by Janet Wallace.
• Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds is a great small seed company.  Their web site has great photos and they also sell rare poultry.
• Southern Exposure Seed Exchange sells heirloom varieties, silica gel, heat-sealable paper-poly-foil-poly pouches and an inexpensive Microseal II heat sealer, which are great containers for freezing seeds.
• Cummins Nursery is a source for mailorder apple rootstocks and custom grafting services. It is a family-run business.
• Peaceful Valley Farm Supply is a great company in Grass Valley, California that sells seed, trees, organic fertilizer and tools. Their full-service web site is now available.    I have bought from this company many times and they are very friendly and reliable.
• Tomato Growers Supply Company has lots and lots of heirloom tomato varieties.  Lots. They also have tomatillos and sweet and hot peppers.
• Butterfly Encounters has lots of milkweed and Monarch butterfly stuff for sale.  Please plant some milkweed to provide habitat for Monarch butterflies! If you are in the USA you can see them at their winter home at the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary in Pacific Grove right next to Monterey, California beginning in October. I've seen them and there aren't that many left.